Nyc In Squeeze Play Between Yankees And Jersey

November 10, 1996|By Joseph A. Kirby, Tribune Staff Writer.

NEW YORK — Just two weeks after their beloved Yankees won the World Series, some New Yorkers have once again begun to hold their breaths. The most fabled team in sports history is threatening to move from its tradition-rich stadium, and loyal fans and city officials fear that they will wind up the losers in a game of financial and political hardball.

For years, Yankees owner George Steinbrenner has groused about the amenities at Yankee Stadium--a museum of baseball history where the team has played for 73 years--and the tough Bronx neighborhood that surrounds it. This year, Steinbrenner's complaints about the traffic, crime and his diminished profits took on a pronounced urgency. The team's lease ends in 2002, and the owner wants the future settled.

So, Steinbrenner, who is already detested by many New Yorkers, made it crystal clear to public officials that he was not afraid to move the Yankees out of state unless the city builds him a new ballpark.

Republican Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who is preparing to run for re-election next year, then stepped up to the plate in a big way, offering Steinbrenner and his team a mindboggling $1.1 billion 70,000-seat stadium and multiuse sports complex with a retractable dome on Manhattan's West Side.

If built, the stadium would be, by far, the costliest stadium in U.S. history. The problem for Giuliani--who is caught in a high-stakes game being played nationally by professional sports team owners and other big-city mayors--is that many people believe it won't, can't or shouldn't be built.

The proposed stadium's cost already has caused some politicians, including Sen. Alfonse D'Amato and Gov. George Pataki, also Republicans, to express serious reservations. Meanwhile, concerned local officials have questioned the wisdom of the big-dollar relocation at a time when the city is suffering through a massive school overcrowding problem and severe budget cuts.

"This is a big waste of money," said J.J. Gonzalez, a spokesman for Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer, a Democrat who is considering a run for mayor. "This thing shouldn't be built. There are so many other things this money could be used for."

Marc S. Ganis, president of Sportscorp Ltd., a Chicago-based consulting firm, and others involved in the financing of stadiums have cast a dubious eye on the stadium's financing plans. They point out, for example, that $90 million would be needed annually to pay off state bonds used to pay for a $1 billion stadium. That bond debt is comparable to the combined debts of seven recently built or planned stadiums across the country.

Also, the city's multiuse stadium would have to attract considerably more fans than the Yankees do at their current stadium. That means officials would have to recruit another professional team to use the park in the baseball offseason, and the city would have to collect a larger portion of the revenues from admission, luxury suites, parking and concessions--a move Steinbrenner would certainly oppose.

"It just doesn't pan out economically," Ganis said.

Such negative reviews moved Giuliani to reconsider brokering some sort of plan that would radically remodel existing Yankee Stadium.

Nonetheless, Yankee fans are stewing at the possibility that the Bronx Bombers could be leaving what many baseball aficionados consider hallowed ground.

"It's not fair. We (fans) have given (the Yankees) our heart and soul. We deserve better," said Luis Camacho, 42, a Bronx native who has lived in the shadow of Yankee Stadium nearly all of his life. "(Fans) shouldn't be treated like wet food stamps."

Giuliani has found that placating Steinbrenner is easier said than done. The politically savvy mayor has insisted that he does not want New York to suffer the fate of other cities, such as Cleveland, Baltimore and Houston, whose professional sports teams have been lured away.

But Giuliani offered his latest proposal only after his hand was forced by Steinbrenner and New Jersey officials.

Top executives of New Jersey's Sports and Exposition Authority wooed Steinbrenner last year with several "concepts" for a baseball park that could be built on one of three sites in northern New Jersey. The proposed stadiums would hold 50,000 to 55,000 people and cost anywhere from $400 million to $500 million to build.

Steinbrenner has not publicly endorsed New Jersey's proposals, but has said that he does favor that state's idea of an open-air, natural grass stadium over New York City's domed stadium concept.

If Steinbrenner moved the Yankees to New Jersey, the Bronx Bombers would swell the list of teams that have hopped across the Hudson River. The New York Giants and New York Jets, the city's professional football teams, already play in the Meadowlands sports complex, as do the New Jersey Nets.

A New Jersey ballpark, however, would have to be approved by Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, who has opposed the use of tax dollars to build such a facility.

While some believe that Steinbrenner is bluffing, New Yorkers do not put anything past the man they derisively call "The Boss." Steinbrenner, who has owned the team since 1972, has a history of being impulsive (he changes managers as if they were neckties) and he is capable of bizarre behavior (he once hired a private detective to sully a former player's reputation).

"I think Steinbrenner is going to go to Jersey," said Ed Koch, New York's feisty former mayor.

"Steinbrenner and Giuliani are pulling our chain. (Steinbrenner) will not stay in the South Bronx. He's already made up his mind. I believe what he and the mayor are trying to do is lull the city and lessen the eventual anger of the fans."